


Foreign Lands

by desree_rd



Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desree_rd/pseuds/desree_rd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Excerpt: The first time it happened, Nick was secretly convinced that Helen, somehow, had managed the art of manipulating time to do her bidding. (...) So Claudia was gone, Nick's life was left in shambles, and, well...to say he handled it well would have been a bold-faced lie.<br/>The second time it happened, however, Nick almost didn't notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foreign Lands

The first time it happened, Nick was secretly convinced that Helen, somehow, had managed the art of manipulating time to do her bidding.

It was non-sense, of course; no one could predict the consequences of one's actions hundreds of millions of years into the future. There had been only one opportunity for Helen to create a change in time in a manner that Nick would be aware of it, and that had been that fateful trip back to the Cretaceous. It would have been impossible for her to cut just that one threat in the tangle of lives, time and evolution with the kind of surgical precision it would take to erase Claudia Brown and create Jenny Lewis in her stead.

Still. There couldn't have been a more satisfactory outcome for Helen, if his wife had indeed orchestrated Claudia's disappearance from history herself. She never did tolerate competition particularly well.

So Claudia was gone, Nick's life was left in shambles, and, well...to say he handled it well would have been a bold-faced lie.

The second time it happened, however, Nick almost didn't notice.

 

oOo

 

“No broken bones, no gaping wounds... I take it releasing the beasts back into their natural habitat went well?”

Nick startled violently to find James Lester standing in the doorway to his office. His glance, though, was quickly redirected to his desk, a confused frown creasing his forehead.

“Cutter!” A long-suffering sigh erupted from the doorway. “I do prefer it when people answer my questions without all this superfluous prodding.”

“Right...”

Lester pursed his lips in irritation when the professor's attention remained with the clutter on his desk, but at least he was talking now.

“Uh, I had to bribe our erstwhile guests with a few cabbages, but once I led by example, they went willingly enough.” And only once he had reported this did he look up at his superior, asking suspiciously, “Has someone been in my office?”

Forgoing the question entirely, Lester focused on the troublesome implication of Nick's explanation. “You have been through the anomaly yourself?”

“That's what I said, wasn't it?”

“And here I was under the distinct impression that we didn't want to do that anymore.”

“Yes, well, _we_ couldn't exactly push two umpteen tons worth of hadrosaurs through by their rear, could we?”

As usual, Nick's Scottish brogue thickened with the rise of his temper. Glaring at the other man, he reiterated, “And I mean it: has someone been in my office while I was gone?”

“Paranoia, Cutter? I suppose someone ate your porridge as well?” The casually scornful tone Lester was so fond of using once again had Nick bristling. “I ought to make those psychological evaluations mandatory after all.”

And with that he left Nick standing in the office in question, annoyance effectively muting the unaccountable feeling that something was off.

It finally came to him about a half hour later, when he was idly perusing the few pictures scattered about the room, looking for inspiration on what to write into his official report – or rather how to put it. It was an unloved chore he used to delegate to Stephen before –

Grimly, he pushed the thought away. Only to suddenly sit up straight in his chair when he came to a blinding realization.

Those pictures...

There was someone missing in all of them: Stephen.

As much as Stephen's loss felt like an open wound still which Nick didn't like prodding, the pain of betrayal and guilt and missed chances still too raw, he'd made a point of keeping around memories of their happier days. Most of the pictures were recent, shots taken of the team in various combination of its members, dating back a year and a half at most, except not one of them featured his former assistant anymore; there had also been a picture of the two of them during that infamous expedition to the Amazon, now missing entirely. And it had always been one of Nick's favourite pictures because Stephen – younger and carefree – was smiling one of his rare true smiles, the kind that could light up a whole room with its brightness.

First warily, then ever more agitatedly, Nick began searching his room for the few mementos he had kept – the petrified claw of a velociraptor, a birthday gift _(Stephen's eyes glinted with mischief. “Now you have one more thing in common with Dr. Allan Grant”)_ first discarded after Helen's bombshell, then recovered almost obsessively; the last book Stephen had ever read, found in his locker alongside a change of clothes that still resided in Nick's own cabinet...or had, up to this point...

“Professor?” a curious voice cut Nick's futile search short, and he looked up in surprise to eye the intruder.

“Connor.”

“Are you looking for anything?” The young man's eyes darted around the office, taking in the chaos Nick had wrecked in his already cluttered surroundings.

“Yes,” Nick answered, scratching his head sheepishly and surveying the damage. “Yes, actually. I was looking for my pictures of Stephen. I seem to have misplaced them.” Or he might finally have gone off the deep end – at this point it was as realistic a possibility as anything.

“Who?”

Connor looked at him blankly.

The feeling he'd had ever since returning to the Anomaly Research Centre after coming back from their latest call-out, that feeling that something was _off_ , suddenly settled as a frozen weight in the pit of Nick's stomach.

“Stephen Hart!” Nick snapped, crosser than intended.

Please, he prayed, please not again! Stephen Hart could not be another Claudia Brown, _goddamnit_!

He already lost him, how was it fair for Nick to be the only one left to remember him at all? There was a lifetime of history between them. And despite everything, the idea that Stephen Hart had never even existed...

“Oh, you mean your former research assistant?”

Connor's words scattered the uprising tide of emotions like wind blowing away autumn leaves. Nick was left helplessly disoriented, trying to figure out how to get answers to his questions without appearing the lunatic he was feeling like right now.

Then again, this was Connor. The lad usually took his ravings better than anyone else Nick had ever known.

Apparently, he had been silent for too long, because Connor's next words were filled with concern.

“Is everything alright, Professor?”

“Why wouldn't it be?”

“It's just that... well, your assistant left the uni about three months or thereabouts before I enrolled. You haven't mentioned him ever since I've known you.”

Suddenly, he chuckled. “You know, actually, it was all anybody was talking about in my first semester. I never met him, of course, but he left quite the impression behind, especially with the girls!” He turned more sober as he regarded Nick with soulful eyes. “You guys were said to be tight. And then, one day, he just disappeared. It was fuel to a lot of rumours.”

Of course it was. Nick snorted despite himself. Those rumours had cropped up in... oh, sod it, he might as well call a spade a spade: Those rumours had cropped up in his original time-line as well.

The irony of it didn't escape Nick.

And if he was honest with himself, they weren't entirely unfounded.

“What made you think of him? I mean, after all these years, why now?”

Nick was still reeling. The disorientation had receded a little, but slowly he was starting to realize what Connor's explanation truly meant for him: if Stephen had quit before Connor had had the opportunity to meet him...

For a moment, Nick could hardly breathe his chest felt so tight, because if what he was thinking was true – it meant that Stephen was still alive, still out there somewhere!

“Professor?”

Nick brought his gaze back to Connor, whose earlier concern was still lingering in his expression.

Well.

The lad deserved an answer.

And if anyone would be able to believe him, it was Connor.

“Do you remember Claudia Brown?”

 

oOo

“It's kind of scary, you know?” Connor contemplated after Nick had finished what he knew sounded like an old wife's tale. The young man had migrated to Nick's desk sometime during the last forty minutes, perching on top of it and idly letting his legs swing. “The thought that our lives can be so easily changed without us even realizing. Fascinating, but scary!”

He stopped, stared at Nick sheepishly, then wildly gesticulated with his arms.

“Not for you – I mean – it has to be... God, I don't even know! If what you're saying is true... not to say that I don't believe you because I _do_ , but it's really really – “

“Scary?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” He tugged on the frayed seams of his fingerless gloves in embarrassment. “Your whole life has been turned upside down. Again.”

Shaking his head fondly, Nick couldn't help but smirk. It was absurdly reassuring that some things apparently never did change.

“Thanks for stating the obvious, Connor.”

The lad flashed him a grin. The show of good humour didn't last long, however, replaced by a more sombre scrutiny.

“What?” Nick asked.

“He really meant a lot to you, didn't he? Stephen?”

His voice felt scratchy all of a sudden. “Aye, he did.” Maybe not always in a good way, but always a lot.

“Then maybe this change isn't so bad this time...”

“Maybe not,” Nick agreed.

He was silent for a long moment. Trying to decide the prudence of it. Finally, he spoke up.

“Can I ask a favour of you, Connor?”

He wouldn't be able to let it rest until he knew for sure.

“Find out where one Stephen Hart lives, and what he's doing these days – “ The young man jumped off the desk with a bright smile and headed for the door, bouncing as he went. “ – coming right up!”

Shaking his head again with a smile, Nick wondered what he had done to deserve a friend like Connor.

“Thank you,” he whispered into the empty room.

 

oOo

 

A glass of single malt in his right hand, an open file on the low table in front of him, a picture frame in his left, Nick sat on his living room sofa and contemplated the wireless telephone sitting on top of the file. His eyes would periodically be drawn to the picture inside the frame only to snap back to the phone a little while later.

The picture in his hand was an exact replica of the one he recalled putting up in his office not three weeks ago; Stephen, bright-eyed and smiling, one arm casually slung across the shoulders of Nick's disgruntled looking younger self, behind them the luscious green backdrop of the rainforest.

The trip had been taken about two years into Stephen's tenure as Nick's assistant. Nick had known the lad for almost three years then, taking over his missing wife's responsibilities as Stephen's tutor.  
Whatever change had occurred in the timeline, obviously it would have had to happen after that expedition.

The file included Stephen's current address and contact information as well as other bits and pieces of information on a life both familiar and not. Connor had come through, not that Nick had had any doubts – it was probably for the best, though, if Nick didn't ever think to ask how his former student had come by all this information. The one thing the file didn't tell him was the reason Stephen had decided to leave, however, and Nick wouldn't have minded knowing _that_.

One hour now, one hour and nine minutes, and Nick still hadn't picked up the phone.

Looking back at the picture once again, he wondered how he, i.e. this universe's original Nick had fared after Stephen had been gone.

Over the past few months since – since Stephen's death, there had been time enough to analyse the last eight years, the last few weeks over and over again. In a way it had kept him sane even as Jenny had told him that he would make himself sick looking for answers that just didn't exist. But it wasn't so much answers Nick sought.

What he'd found was the realization that, if not for Stephen, Nick likely wouldn't have survived those first few months after Helen's disappearance as undamaged as he had. Oh, he came out of it bitter and disillusioned, perhaps, but not as broken as he could have been.

As a matter of fact, looking back at the state he had been in with the distance of almost a decade, Nick was ashamed of how much he had depended on someone who – at the time – had still been his student. He had been a train-wreck, he had needed the help; that, too, he was able to acknowledge now. But Stephen...

The betrayal, the anger at the situation as a whole was still there, but for the first time he was able to look past his own hurt and consider Stephen's side of the story objectively.

What Nick liked to forget was that the man he had considered his best friend was younger than him, by over ten years. Stephen had been twenty-four years old back then. Twenty-three when Helen had still been there. Not much more than a teenager, really, in love (or _lust_ ) with his professor.

And then suddenly, Stephen had somehow found himself responsible for the husband of his illicit affair, a man he thereto had only known from hearsay and the occasional pass in the hallways. The first weeks of their acquaintance was mostly a blur in Nick's memory, but he vaguely recalled having the impression that the young man who had taken to fetching him from the pub hadn't much liked him.

If Nick knew Stephen at all – and in eight years of shared office hours and the ever more frequent evenings you get to know a person, whether they want you to or not – the boy had been hurting, too. And still, he stayed. Stayed and helped his unwitting adversary through the worst time of his life; stayed to stand beside him against obtuse deans and insufferable colleagues, against arrogant civil service hatchet men; stayed in the face of Nick's anger and their broken friendship. Stayed for eight years until he couldn't stay anymore.

Nick couldn't say he understood Stephen's motivation then. Guilt, surely, but guilt alone wasn't enough to explain eight long years of companionship – or so at least he liked to believe. At any rate, Nick was finally able to say he forgave and mean it.

What he did still feel angry about was the lies and the secrecy of their last weeks. And even that...

Even that made him feel like a bit of a hypocrite now; demanding absolute honesty and giving nothing in return – he had been entitled to it, but Nick should have realized that it hadn't been just about them. This rift between them, and more importantly Nick's inability to share his suspicions, his deductions, had put the whole team in danger. He couldn't, in good faith, seek the entire blame with his wayward friend.

Nick shot awake from dreams of blood, confused albeit grateful, to find he had lost almost twenty minutes. Phantom images stood behind his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, hoping to get rid of the sickening memories of Stephen's last moments.

His friend had died for him.

For _him_ ; maybe for Abby and Connor, and Jenny, too (maybe even for Helen, a little bit). But mainly for Nick. There was no escaping that fact, not when Nick had had the bruise on his cheek to show for it for days afterwards.

Stephen had died in Nick's stead.

However their friendship might have started, it hadn't all been a lie. It was a hard pill to swallow – more so, because the realization had come too darned late.

Only none of that had happened here. Stephen was still alive.

Carefully setting the picture frame down, Nick rubbed a heavy hand over tired eyes.

None of it had happened.

Once again, Nick wondered what had made Stephen leave this time around. Only one way to find out.

Knocking back the whiskey that, by some miracle, had remained safely in his hand, Nick put the tumbler down as well and picked up the phone instead.

His thumb hovered over the green button when he paused.

None of it had happened.

Stephen didn't know the first thing about anomalies or the danger they represented. Nick's whole life had come to be one messed up tangle with a looming anomaly at its core.

He lay the phone back down, refilled his glass and studied the picture.

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this really is the end.


End file.
